'Left-wing hack': White House official's vicious tirade against journalist

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has launched a tirade at a journalist who asked about recent US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conduct. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lashed out at a journalist on Thursday (US time).(USA Today) Leavitt branded Niall Stanage, a White House columnist for The Hill, a 'left-wing hack'.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) The journalist asked Leavitt about comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good last week. Niall Stanage, a White House columnist for The Hill , questioned assertions from Noem and other members of the Trump administration that ICE is doing "everything correctly". "32 people died in ICE custody last year, 170 US citizens were detained by ICE, and Renee Good was shot in the head and killed by an ICE agent," Stanage said. "How is that doing everything correctly?" Leavitt responded by asking Stanage why Good was killed, to which he replied that an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably. The White House press secretary then launched a minute-long tirade against Stanage. "Oh, OK, so you're a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion," she said. "You're a left-wing hack, you're not a reporter, you're posing in this room as a journalist, and it's so clear by the premise of your question. "And you, and the people in the media - who have such biases, but fake like you're a journalist - you shouldn't even be sitting in that seat." Leavitt claimed Stanage was a left-wing activist pretending to be a journalist. She said ICE agents work to make the nation safer and suggested Stanage focus on innocent Americans killed by 'illegal aliens' in the US. "Shame on you people in the media who have a crooked view, a biased view, and pretend you're an honest journalist," Leavitt concluded. In the same press conference, she dodged a question from The Independent about a recent joke from President Donald Trump about cancelling elections. This week, he told Reuters the US shouldn't even bother with mid-term elections in 2026, although the White House insisted he was joking. DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP : Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play .

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